Saturday, July 04, 2009

The Good News, and the Tragic News

The offseason is a very long time, and our admiration knows no bounds for those bloggers who are creative enough to come up with semi-intelligent posts when there really is not much happening. Today there are a couple of things worthy of a mention.

The first, and potentially good, thing is that the Steelers' 2009 draft choices are getting some love from the "experts." Specifically, our friends at Pro Football Weekly are predicting good things for Ziggy Hood, Kraig Urbik, et al. Rookies who contribute? A very good thing indeed.

The tragic news of course is the death of former NFL quarterback Steve McNair. In our lifetimes he may well have been the toughest quarterback ~ both physically and in terms of trying to beat ~ the Steelers have ever faced. In seventeen career games against the Steelers (including playoffs) Mr. McNair had most impressive numbers: 283 completions on 442 passing attempts (a completion percentage of 64.03), 3,250 passing yards, 363 rushing yards, 23 touchdowns passes (16 interceptions), and 3 rushing touchdowns. His career quarterback rating against the Steelers was 88.339. By way of comparison, his career completion percentage against all opponents was 60.1%, and his quarterback rating was 82.761.

Steve McNair was a great athlete and, based upon the testimonials pouring in, he was an even better person.